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Top Animation News: Rick and Morty, Transformers, Harmony and more!

Top Animation News is a weekly column that rounds up the biggest, best and breaking stories from the world of animation. This edition covers August 17 to 24, 2018.

Rick and Morty fans get a season four teaser plus a live concert.

This week has been music to Rick and Morty fans’ ears — the popular adult animation got an anime-inspired teaser for its highly anticipated fourth season as well as an announcement that Adult Swim Festival (October 6 to 7, Los Angeles) will include a themed concert: “The Rick and Morty Musical Ricksperience”. The series is expected to return in 2019 and is produced inToon Boom Storyboard Pro andToon Boom Harmony.

See the Rick and Morty season four teaser and the rest of the story on “CNET”.

Souce: Hasbro / Cartoon Network.

Catch some retro robots in the Transformers: Cyberverse trailer.

The first trailer for Transformers: Cyberverse takes the series’ aesthetic back to basics — and the 80s. The retro robotic character designs for Megatron, Bumblebee and Optimus Prime are a nostalgic nod to the franchise’s after-school cartoon origins. Transformers: Cyberverse begins airing on Cartoon Network on September 1 and was storyboarded in Toon Boom Storyboard Pro byBoulder Media.

Brazilian 2D animated feature Tito and the Birds was the squawk of the town at the 2018 Annecy International Animated Film Festival. It, alongside Funan, was among the two filmsproduced in Toon Boom software to be nominated for the event’s prestigious Cristal Award. Now, Shout! Studios has acquired the North American distribution rights for Tito and the Birds. Doubtlessly it’s a timely storyline —a young boy trying to survive in a world ravaged by an infectious fear epidemic— will resonate with Western audiences.

Toonz, India’s largest animation studio, is switching from Flash to Harmony.

For its latest series, BooBahB, Toonz Media Group has trained its animators to use Toon Boom Harmony. If the cartoon is a success, all the studio’s projects will switch to the industry-standard digital solution. Additionally, it is also training the next generation of artists in Toon Boom animation at its Toonz Academy. “Harmony was built with creative and artistic needs in mind, and its technical capabilities are surprisingly on par with CGI as well — making it a self-contained software from designing to final screening,” says Jaya Kumar, CEO of Toonz Media Group. Toonz is the largest animation studio in India and indirectly employs over 5,000 people.

Former New York City admen Phil Matarese and Mike Luciano found inspiration in the pigeons outside their agency’s window — that idea took flight to become Animals, HBO’s acclaimed adult animation. They are the show’s directors, writers, voice actors and animators, and had to crash-learn the tools of the industry. Naturally, their search for productivity and quality brought them to Toon Boom Harmony. “… it became clear that [Matarese] and Luciano needed a quicker turnaround for the eight episodes in Season 1, so they incorporated Toon Boom Harmony into their workflow — software used by several major animation studios.”

All of the most highly streamed animated videos on YouTube have over 1 billion views. They also tend to be overwhelmingly geared towards children and lacking high production values, barring Disney UK’s Frozen singalong. The top three videos include Russian 3D piece Masha and the Bear “Recipe for Disaster” at the top, followed by “Wheels on the Bus” by Little Baby Bum and finally “Baby Shark Dance” by Pinkfong!.

Press play on all 10 most-viewed animated YouTube videos on “Cartoon Brew”.

The most popular Disney classics in the US and Canada — by state and province!

“CableTV.com" used Google Trends to decipher which Disney classics are most popular by US state and Canadian province. The most popular House of Mouse piece across America was The Lion King, with the support of 17 regions. In Canada, was a four-way tie between Bambi, Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid and The Lion King again.

Popular strategy video game Reigns is getting a Game of Thrones edition this October. Available on PC, iOS and Android devices, it will allow players to take on the role of one of the series’ leading characters and make decisions based on the advice of those surrounding them. Titled Reigns: Game of Thrones, the game is being developed by Nerial in partnership with HBO and will be published by Devolver Digital.

As part of its $8-billion original content strategy for 2018, Netflix has partnered with Korean studio TUBAn to create a new season of hit children’s series Larva. Titled Larva Island, it will be the streaming giant’s first cartoon in the country. The series is dialogue-free and follows the adventures of two worms living on a remote island. Since the Larva franchise was launched in 2011, it has been imported to over 150 countries and has spawned a feature film — due out in 2019. Larva Island is further evidence Netflix is investing in animation as a channel to connect with regional audiences.